It all started with a bike ride – see the movie!

My brother Eyal and I were so focused on riding our tandem Camello from Jerusalem to Eilat that we didn’t notice the other riders.

Eyal suffers from Parkinson’s and heart disease and we decided to take a stand against these ailments by riding across Israel to our home town of Eilat with the Hazon Israel riders of 2011. This challenge took a year of enormous planning, training and risk taking. It was hard going. Pushing Camello and its payload up the hills was not trivial, but we were joined at the hip by our beloved tandem and lost in the world of the possibilities we created.

What we didn’t anticipate was the impact we would have on the other riders. We must have been some sight; a silhouette of two brothers on a two-wheeled-contraption crawling along Negev’s ridges pushing each other along one hill at a time.

The other Hazon riders were blown away by the vision. They came to us one by one and shared teary-eyed stories about a sick sister or an estranged brother. Everyone had a story.

Eyal and I looked at each other with wonder. We were both caught off-guard, not realizing that we would have such an impact. As far as we were concerned, it was business as usual. We had so many different issues to deal with that the thought of us affecting others around us didn’t make it into our To Do list, but the power we developed together is a concept that apparently struck a universal chord. And the rest is history!

Related Articles

About Ronen Yaari

I’m no guru and I don’t have hundreds of hours of certifications. All I can claim is that I did not squander the time that I was given so far.
I took care of my body from an early age and realized that a fit body was going to be the vehicle of choice to propel me around the planet to find what I was supposed to find.
I ran marathons, biked continents, climbed glaciers, walked across states, sailed oceans, explored reefs and floated myself over yoga mats. If the sun is down I’m a sleep and if it’s up I’m outside. My biggest accomplishment by far is creating a family that enjoys each other and puts up with me.